


Kindred Spirits

by ThatOddNerd



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Kindred Spirits, Spoilers, bonding over odd things, mentions of childhood abuse/troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 17:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOddNerd/pseuds/ThatOddNerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been on the run for months, recent events forcing their hands. They are yet to stay in the same spot for more than a week, it's pure chaos, and yet, two people find a little bit of solitude in the destruction. </p><p>Sort of spoilers for the newer trailers for Age of Ultron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindred Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This blends pure speculation based on spoilers and some comic book background info. I seem, as some of you may know from other Avengers fics I've written, to have a penchant for Clint and the Maximoffs being close friends, especially Clint and Wanda. So here it goes.

* * *

 

They've been on the run for months now, and they show no signs of stopping. The entire world erupted into the very chaos that the Avengers had fought so hard to prevent, and now staying in place was not an option. Not even Clint's farm in the middle of no where Iowa was safe. So they ran. Stark had rigged up coms for them, as well as phones and computers on a private, uncrackable network, so keeping in touch between them wasn't a big issue. But that didn't mean that they felt connected. The battles had strained many relationships, and being on the run constantly put an even heavier strain on them. Pepper and Tony ran, Maria Hill choosing to go underground at a S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker and helping from there. Bruce went back into hiding in an area in India in need of a doctor. Steve went to Germany of all places, telling the others when they voiced concern, that he'd be fine. And Clint...

A part of Clint knew that everyone expected him to go into hiding with Natasha, and indeed it had been considered. They thought of their options, their covers blown and hide outs known, but it didn't end up happening that way. They were packing up to leave when an argument erupted between them, one of the worst ones they'd ever had, that turned into a full out brawl that had to be stopped by security in the tower. Clint, angry and unable to sleep, was at the bar on the top of the tower at three a.m. , having some alone time with a bottle of whiskey, when Wanda Maximoff came up for similar reasons. They talked and she told him she and her brother were leaving in an hour, for places unknown, but knowing they'd be alright. For now. Clint told her about his plans, and how they were shifting, and Wanda offered to have him go with her and Pietro. 

He agreed before she could finish her sip of gin. 

In retrospect, he supposed that just ditching Natasha without a warning was cruel, she'd been left by so many people in her life already, but at that moment, as he put the whisky bottle down, told Wanda to wait, ran to get his stuff, and met her and Pietro back up at the bar, he didn't really care. He was tired of following orders, tired of being treated like he couldn't handle himself, tired of everything. He wanted a change, a new life, and he was giving himself that. For once, Clint Barton threw caution and others to the wind and he ran. 

He'd talked to Natasha since then, but never brought up the night he left with the Maximoffs, and she never brought it up either. It had become one of those topics that was put on a blacklist of things never to bring up because that conversation would never end well. He knew, much to his guilt  and chagrin, that Natasha understood why he left without her, and why he chose to left with the Maximoffs. His past being what it was, him becoming a nomad of sorts again wasn't entirely unheard of. She also knew he had a lot to work out, both major battles taking a toll on him that might never be entirely eradicated, dredging up memories from his past that he'd worked hard to forget. She also knew he needed to do it without her around, and that the Maximoffs actually made perfect travel partners for this. Three people running from their pasts to the hopeful light of a future where things weren't so bleak. 

"Pietro just got off the line with Hill. We'll be cleared to move again in two days, as usual." Wanda's voice drifted through the air, registering to him, faintly, through his hearing aid, alerting him of her presence, and oddly enough, calming him down some. He had been sitting in the same chair by the window for two hours, watching the snow fall on the ground and becoming more and more anxious. As much as he liked Portsmouth, he was ready to leave. He'd become more and more anxious in the last month, a feeling of dread, like they were being caught up on, overwhelming him. 

"Good." 

He heard the scrape of a chair being pulled up near his, and felt the edge of the jacket Wanda wore these days, a heavy black peacoat similar to the one her brother wore, against his arm on the armrest.  They'd become so in tune with each other over the past months, that they'd become a flawless, perfectly synchronized team, eliciting awe from enemies and allies alike. During a fight, they moved fluidly, knowing almost magically, what one would do before they did it, and matching their actions up to assist. Wanda had her mind tricks and abilities, but it was deeper than that.

"What's wrong?" He didn't bother to ask how she knew, she always did. Whether it was her using her powers or just the ability to read a friend, she always knew, even when he was bullshitting her. Especially when he was bullshitting her.

"I'm antsy. Something doesn't feel right. It feels like someone is catching up to us and I don't know who or why. I wish we could leave tomorrow." Wanda nodded, turning to look at the snow falling outside, mimicking her friend's actions.

"Yes, I understand. I feel the same way. I started to feel like something was off the last time we were in Costa Rica."

"That was three months ago." Clint pointed out, grunting as he reached down to pick up the coffee thermos next to his chair.

"Yes, it was. And you felt it back then too, don't lie to me Clint, you know I'm right." Clint looked from the snowfall to Wanda, who was looking at him as well, studying his reaction, and shrugged.

"Yes, you are. As usual." He handed the thermos, along with a travel cup, to her, which she took, still eying him, worried. "What?"

"It isn't just us being followed that has you worried, now is it? What else is wrong?"

"There was this girl, when I was a kid, that my older brother Barney fell in love with while we were working at a carnival. She would come to see one of my mentors, Buck Chisholm, also known as Trickshot, perform, among other things, and would always come by to talk to us, since we were about the same age as her. Barney, Barney was always so careful as a child. When our father would beat him he'd curl into the defensive. When my father beat me, my brother would always try to stop him, and end up getting beaten as well. He'd get picked on at school, and used to be mugged coming home from school or robbed while working at my dad's butcher shop until he started to fight back. He'd become reserved, isolated. His judge of character strict because that's how the world was with him. So it surprised me when I realized that he was in love with her. Eventually, he worked up the courage to ask her out and they sort of dated for awhile. We could never be away from the carnival grounds for too long or we'd get in trouble. We were in her town for maybe two, three months. I kept wondering what he'd do when it came time for us to leave. Turns out, he didn't make any decision, her parents did. Her father stormed into the carnival grounds one day, angry as all hell, wielding a shot gun, and asked for my brother. Our boss tried to make him leave but Barney was never one to back down from a fight, so he went to confront him, while our boss and myself watched from a distance. There was quite a bit of yelling involved, and it ended with the man pointing said gun at my brother's forehead. That was when Chisholm walked silently behind him and put the tip of an arrow to the back of his head, telling him to leave before he made him a kebab, and never return. The girl never came back after that and my brother grew even more bitter and distrustful of the world. They never saw each other again."

"That's awful." Wanda commented, apparently entranced in his story. "What does that have to do with the current situation though?"

"I ran into her yesterday, when I went to get our dinner." He replied, taking another sip of his coffee. It was below freezing in Portsmouth that night and the heating for the flat they'd been crashing in was, of course, broken. "I guess she recognized me from the television and other news outlets. All my S.H.I.E.L.D. files are public record now. She looked happy, despite the current situation the world is facing. She got married to a nice man, and they have three children..." Clint grinned suddenly. "She admitted, somewhat bashfully, that she'd named one of her sons Clint after me. We had become close friends during the time she'd been coming to the circus. She is doing well."

"That's good then, but something happened didn't it? What happened?"

"She asked about my brother, where he was, how he was doing." 

"What's wrong with that? Are you no longer in touch with your brother or something? I don't think she would have minded, if she knew your history with S.H.I.E.D. . "Wanda commented, turning her gaze back to the snowfall outside.

"You're right, she wouldn't have. But that wasn't the case. My brother...my brother is dead." This brought Wanda's eyes back to him, and her expression darkened to one of the pain one gets when understanding someone else's tragedies.

"I'm sorry. That's terrible. What happened?"

"I killed him." Clint looked from his coffee, back out the window, then to her. "Barney turned bad real quick. We were on opposite sides of the morality team so to speak. I thought...I thought I'd killed him years before during a fight at this rich guy's house where Barney'd been working security. But I didn't. Then, about eight years ago, I'm in Budapest with Nat, and we come to this warehouse where this guy is holding all these people hostage. Innocent people. It was an all out firefight. It was awful. Me and Nat got all the hostages out alive but the price had been steep on many levels. We're going to leave and there's Barney, standing by our exit route, glaring. The fight started with me and Nat against Barney, and ended with me putting an arrow through Barney's skull as he attempted to choke Nat to death."

"Clint, I..."

"It's alright." Clint waved a hand. "But clearly, clearly I couldn't tell this woman that. She'd loved my brother so much. I couldn't tell her he'd turned evil and his life ended by my hand, or rather, my bow. When I filed my report for the incident, I never included his name. I just put him down as a random thug. So I lied and said he'd died in a car crash ten years ago. She was heart broken, but at least she wasn't...she wasn't angry with me. I mean I didn't really have a choice in that moment with him. He was killing Nat and there was no way to stop him without taking him out entirely, but people, especially people who were or are in love, they don't see it like that. All they see is a person who killed the person they loved, forget the morals."

"Yes, that is something I understand a great deal." Wanda conceded.

"Point is, when I shot Barney, when I killed my brother, I thought that there was no way the world could get worse. I'd seen the worst of the worst, or so I'd thought,  before that mission. I'd had friends and loved ones taken from me by death, brainwashing, or indifference. I'd seen villages of innocent people destroyed, kids murdered, all of it. Everything. I thought there was no way the world could feel more hopeless, not after that. Not after being forced to kill the man who'd been my protector as a child. And some part of me knew that that was a very naive way of thinking, and I am not a naive person, but I guess some miniscule part of me always wanted to believe that there was still a possibility for a bright future. That some day soon, the world wouldn't in fact, collapse into chaos, let it take over. I was wrong, good god, was I wrong. Loki's invasion, being taken over, that was the beginning of my resolve starting to crack. And then what happened...what happened seven months ago... the world now? I'm wondering if it was worth it, the effort I and so many others put into trying to save the world. When I saw that woman, I felt guilty, not just because I had killed Barney, but because here was this wonderful person, this innocent woman who looked at me with such awe and recognition, someone who cared enough about me to name one of her sons after me and that was before she knew about S.H.I.E.L.D., thinking I'm a hero, thinking I'll make it all better when I won't. I didn't make anything better. I helped make it worse. This mess the world is in now is partially my fault, and I feel like I've failed." 

"I don't believe you've failed at all Clint." Wanda handed the thermos back to him, which he took, grateful to add more warmth to his coffee, which had grown cold. "If you've failed then we all failed, everyone of us. The entire human race. You're not alone in the least. Back in Sovokia, my brother and I, our lives weren't perfect to say the least. Our parents tried, but the situation was rough. The government was cruel, strict, a dictatorship with no signs of relenting even now. The Maximoffs adopted us as babies, we don't even know who our biological parents were. No one ever came right out and commented on the fact that we were adopted. You could tell too, we look absolutely nothing like our adopted parents did. Children aren't the only ones who can be relentlessly cruel. The town considered us to be outsiders, and we were treated as such. Denied service, arrested for no reason, Pietro and I would be beaten at school and no one said a word. Not that it would have mattered. The social injustices of the country would have made sure that nothing was ever done to our tormentors. As the years went on, things, they just got worse, so much worse. And when Pietro and myself started showing signs of having powers...we were freaks, Clint, from beginning to end. Our parents would stand their ground and defend us but we couldn't control our powers back then and things just kept happening. It was awful." 

"I'm sorry." Clint offered, feeling the weight of her burdens start to shift, and be given to him as well. All good team members take equal share in burdens, of this he was steadfast in believing. 

"Then one day, there was an accident." Wanda took a sip from her coffee and looked at him. "Our parents were fighting in the kitchen. Pietro had accidentally caused a building to collapse on the school grounds by running into a support beam, then another, and another, after these boys started teasing him and he got upset. Our parents were at their wits end, didn't know what to do with us. I always hated hearing and seeing my parents argue. The world was filled with enough anger and hatred, did they have to show it too? And to each other?" Clint nodded in understanding. "I was watching from the back, sitting on a swing in the garden. Pietro had run off somewhere, upset. I, meanwhile was growing more and more upset as their voices grew louder and louder... and powers you see, they're so often controlled by the person's emotions..." 

"You killed one of your parents by accident?" Clint guessed. The hollow laugh Wanda gave sent chills down his spine.

"I killed _both_ of my parents. I saw the red smoke swirl around them, and by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. Poof, they were gone. Nothing left but a bit of grey stuff that resembled ash. Pietro returned to my side immediately, where he'd been I still don't know. He knew, when he looked down and saw the grey, then saw the look on my face, he knew what had happened. So we concocted a story about our parents being kidnapped by some criminal organization, that later called us, and told us they'd disposed of the bodies somewhere we would never find them."

"Did the town buy it?" 

"They did, actually. It wasn't an entirely uncommon occurrence unfortunately. Except in that case, it wasn't some secret criminal organization, it was a completely different type of criminal organization." 

"The government would kidnap citizens and kill them?" Wanda nodded again. 

"Citizens they viewed as threats. Citizens that could cause trouble, any kind of trouble. If a political storm was brewing, more and more people would go missing. The big governments of the world, they say they care but then they do nothing when the people are suffering, dying, facing these injustices. If the people of the town had figured out that I'd killed my parents, even though it was an accident, even though it was something that was, at the time, way beyond my control, instead of trying to help me out or even understand me during a trial, they would have just jailed me, run me and my brother out of town, killed us. Things were still rough after my parents' deaths, but somehow, the town believing my parents were casualties of the government made us more acceptable. We joined the revolution, became political rebels, fought back against the government that had done nothing to help us or the people in our town, or anyone in our country. If you were rich, they'd notice, if you were poor, you were dirt. And you walk on dirt, do you not? It's like that all around the world, Sovokia isn't special in that sense. We all try to fight for what's right, to protect those who need protecting, but in the end, does it matter? It's just like you said. We all fought so hard, in our own ways, for a better future, a brighter future. We fought to prevent the complete collapse into chaos, and it fell anyway. Either way, you are not alone Clint. I know it feels like you are because of the awful things that have happened so close to you, but you are strong, you are a good fighter, and your moral compass is pointed in the right direction. You cannot control the circumstances in which you were given; having to shoot Barney, the actions at the carnival, anything that happened during the first battle with Loki or with Ultron, any more than I could control my powers the day my parents died. The best we can do is keep fighting, help repair the world by repairing the smaller bits first. This is no more the end than that day was the end for myself. This is just a new beginning." Clint, stunned, nodded at her in agreement, and offered up his cup in a toast. Wanda smiled and clanked her cup against his, before they both returned to watching the snow. 

"You two ready for dinner? I went and got food at Spinnaker's." Pietro appeared at the door to the room, holding three take out bags and looking, as they did, tired  and in desperate need for sleep.

"Yes, I do believe I could eat something." Wanda replied, getting up from her chair, setting the cup down on the windowsill, and walking towards the door. "Coming?" she asked, looking back at Clint. 

"Yeah. I'm starving." Clint repeated Wanda's actions and followed them through the door and to the master bedroom where the only fireplace in the flat was located. As they sat around the fire to eat, Clint looked at the Maximoffs and felt, for the first time in a long while, like he was right where he was supposed to be. He'd found the people who were, without a  doubt, supposed to be in his life. Damaged people just like him. Kindred spirits. He'd never been one to follow the rules of any company, nor would he ever truly be able to commit to an organization. That just wasn't who he was. But he could commit to an idea, he could commit to  a small group, he could commit to people. He knew this was their beginning, the Maximoffs and his. They'd fight their way through the world, correcting the smaller wrongs before attacking the bigger ones by their jugulars. Wanda had been right.

Two weeks later, they are in the same small village Bruce had settled in, not staying at the same place, but not too far away either. There is a knock on the door of their safehouse, and everyone looks confused. Wanda, Pietro, Clint, and Bruce were all sitting at the table they used to eat, and no one else could possibly know they were there, unless...

"The person who's been ganging up on us." Wanda said, staring at the door. Clint nodded, getting up from his seat and taking the gun out of his holster. Wanda and Pietro rose, ready to fight as well, and Bruce remained seated, although tense. 

Clint raised the gun, and slowly, ever so carefully, opened the front door to reveal...

"Natasha?!" Bruce was the first to react, his face the picture of pure confusion. There Natasha stood, staring at Clint, who, in his shock, still had his gun pointed are her head. Wanda and Pietro looked at them, then each other, and shrugged before Wanda sat back down and Pietro went to get another chair to put by the table, and food on a plate. Natasha walked confidently into the house, closed the door, and gently  lowered Clint's still outstretched arm herself. 

"Hey there Birdbrain." she whispered, her eyes betraying her, tired and relieved and just so close to tears. 

"You're the one that's been following us?" Clint asked, dumbstruck. Natasha's face broke into a grin, and she hugged him, tightly, worrying for a second when he didn't return, before relaxing as she felt his arms wrap around her. 

"Yes. I'll give you all credit, following your movements was a nightmare. I'd lost you several times. I lost you about a month or so and just now found you again. The leads these days are shit because no one trusts anyone else." Natasha looked up at Clint and, throwing caution and the fact that they weren't alone to hell, kissed him. 

"Ew, get a room." The two of them broke apart to see Wanda, smirking and eating a piece of naan, watching them. Natasha actually blushed. 

"Well I do have a room, if you insist on..." Clint began, smiling, knowing exactly how she'd react.

"Oh, oh no gross." Wanda made a face. "These walls are paper thin. At least have the decency to wait until you are alone in the house, good god." 

"Hungry?" Clint inquired as they walked back to the table. 

"Absolutely famished." Natasha replied, sitting in the chair Pietro had brought. 

"Get a room!" This time it had been Pietro, Wanda, and Bruce, which caused Natasha and Clint, and eventually the others as well, to burst out laughing. 

Things may have been chaotic, the world may be crumbling, but in that moment, they knew peace.

 

The End. 

 


End file.
